John Newton undertook postgraduate research into sixteenth- and seventeenth-century beliefs about ghosts at the University of Durham and the University of Oxford. He received his doctorate from the former in 2004 for his thesis exploring the relationship of the period’s literature to both the official theology and folklore of appearances of the dead. A member of both the Society for Psychical Research and the Churches’ Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies, he was on the editorial board that relaunched The Christian Parapsychologist in 2009 and has sat on the SPR’s Spontaneous Cases Committee for over a decade. He currently works in the Press and Information office of an overseas charity and also acts as an editorial consultant.
